Dubai!

We had heard Dubai was hot and we thought after the heat of South East Asia we would be a little prepared. We were wrong.

We walked out if the terminal (in Abu Dhabi) into the midday heat and had the energy drained out of us. It is so hot. We had to go back inside and then wait for the bus from Abu Dhabi to Dubai.

The landscape was not all that flash (funny that) and they were having a sandstorm, so you could not see very far in the distance. At one stage you could even look directly at the sun and see a very faint orange ball.

Anna was a little nervous about Dubai as she was unsure on how she was meant to act and dress. But it was fine. We spent the day at the (enormous) Dubai Mall where a lot of Westerners were. We had never seen anything like it. This place had an aquarium, an ice skating section and our favourite - a HUGE candy store. It had every kind of sweet you can think of (25 flavours of jellybean. We spent so long looking in there and then bought some white chocolate peanut butter cups. SO GOOD!

We spent the entire day at the mall and still did not see it all. But we were exhausted by the end of it so went back to the hotel.

The funniest part of the trip was being back at the airport in Abu Dhabi and going into the departure lounge. The security guard was very friendly and pointed us in the right direction when Anna needed the bathroom. I said that I would wait here for Anna. The security guard waited until Anna was out of ear shot and then asked me if I was going to let her go alone. I said - yeah, she'll be fine. He was blown away and could not get over the fact that I was letting my wife out of my view. He must of thought I was crazy!!